When HeartGold and SoulSilver finally hit the shelves, I bought the game and played to my heart's content. I managed to beat it in about 120 hours, mostly due to me taking so dang long to beat the final boss. However, I felt that the remakes were missing something that the other generation games had; honest difficulty. Sure, some gym leaders had their strengths maximized (Whitney, for instance) but the vast majority of Johto Gym Leaders were underlevelled pushovers that took little to no effort to beat (I'm looking at you and your unevolved metapod, Bugsy).

As such, I've taken it upon myself to, in my free time (which, concerningly, I seem to be having more and more of) update the gym leader roster for Johto. This was done with the goal of pushing trainers with unused potential (such as Falkner, Bugsy, Morty, Chuck, Jasmine, and Pryce) towards a much more balanced team.

I invite you to take a look at it, and tell me whether or not the gym leaders, with these new movepools, would finally be a serious challenge to the player. (And yes, I realized that some of the moves that these pokemon can learn have been learned too early. However, these movesets are perfectly possible for the pokemon listed).

Any Gym Leader with Pokemon that have Items that aren't berries will pose too much of a threat for some players & having the first Gym Leader's pokemon be at the LV range 13-15 is a bit harsh as there isn't much to get experience from prior to the match if I'm not mistaken except for grinding which should never actually be forced, especially this early imo...

Also Claire having a Pupitar is way out of Type & style for her even compared to Aerodactyl & Gyarados, Whitney having a Blissey is a bit much as it has painful HP & SPDEF & is also a bit out of style for her imo & finally Bugsy having a Scizor is maybe ok but it might be murder by chance...

Lastly, those movesets are just too much to handle due to the fact that you don't get much to deal with them before you get to each of them respectively(mainly the beginning portion of them) & that they create a very easily made opportunity for each gym leader to flat out sweep whatever team you may have, especially if it is your first playthrough of the game(meaning you don't have access to anything but what is available to catch prior to the National Dex)...

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I agree with Lawence, while I like the time and effort you put into it this would basically mean that you would take a casual storyline team and have to make it into a grinding competitive team. Being able to have diversity in a team that would go through all gym leaders... that would be a challenge seeing as you would have to keep a constant 7 or 8 pokes at a high level. If you were to revamp the gyms like this you would have to revamp the whole game, the level the trainers are at and wild pokemon too. It seems like a fun idea, but in reality they aren't that bad the way they are now in my opinion.

They were too easy? I feel like their difficulty was ramped up, I don't know. I guess it would be a bit easier with your new abilities and all, but that's beside the point. Your team's okay. And besides, weren't the Kanto leaders ramped up signifigantly?

Any Gym Leader with Pokemon that have Items that aren't berries will pose too much of a threat for some players & having the first Gym Leader's pokemon be at the LV range 13-15 is a bit harsh as there isn't much to get experience from prior to the match if I'm not mistaken except for grinding which should never actually be forced, especially this early imo...

In hindsight, yes, some of the items equipped to the Gym leaders' pokemon are a tad too... Difficult to deal with. And while Falkner's level boost isn't entirely unwarranted, what with every single trainer in the region being pitifully underlevelled, it probably is a bit too much that early in the game. In order to accommodate the raised levels, more trainers would likely be put into place.

Lawrence Codye wrote:

Also Claire having a Pupitar is way out of Type & style for her even compared to Aerodactyl & Gyarados, Whitney having a Blissey is a bit much as it has painful HP & SPDEF & is also a bit out of style for her imo & finally Bugsy having a Scizor is maybe ok but it might be murder by chance...

Lastly, those movesets are just too much to handle due to the fact that you don't get much to deal with them before you get to each of them respectively(mainly the beginning portion of them) & that they create a very easily made opportunity for each gym leader to flat out sweep whatever team you may have, especially if it is your first playthrough of the game(meaning you don't have access to anything but what is available to catch prior to the National Dex)...

I agree with you about the Pupitar, but there are fighting type pokemon readily available before you fight Whitney, along with there being a plethora of pokemon that can inflict status conditions on it to make the fight against it easier. Perhaps it would be easier to deal with if Earthquake and Toxic were removed from its moveset?
On the topic of movesets, yes, they are rigorous and ruthless. They are supposed to be. This is supposed to be a more challenging roster of gym leaders, maybe one that would be available as a [html=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/NewGamePlus]new game-plus scenario.[/html]

Zero Cool wrote:

I agree with Lawence, while I like the time and effort you put into it this would basically mean that you would take a casual storyline team and have to make it into a grinding competitive team. Being able to have diversity in a team that would go through all gym leaders... that would be a challenge seeing as you would have to keep a constant 7 or 8 pokes at a high level. If you were to revamp the gyms like this you would have to revamp the whole game, the level the trainers are at and wild pokemon too. It seems like a fun idea, but in reality they aren't that bad the way they are now in my opinion.

Now that you mention it, revamping johto to be more evenly leveled could possibly alleviate most of the levelling issues that people are bringing up...

searchman52 wrote:

They were too easy? I feel like their difficulty was ramped up, I don't know. I guess it would be a bit easier with your new abilities and all, but that's beside the point. Your team's okay. And besides, weren't the Kanto leaders ramped up signifigantly?

Yes, I personally felt they were too easy. Just look at Johto's Bugsy; he, in HeartGold and SoulSilver, has a well-rounded Scyther (who was the only one on his team that posed a threat), a level 15 Metapod (Who only knows tackle) and a level 15 Kakuna (who only knows poison sting). That's simply disgraceful. That's not a team that a Gym Leader should use. One should not be able to easily one-shot the pokemon that a gym leader has.

Secondly, the Kanto Gym Leaders had the possibility of being difficult; that is, if you decided to take them on directly after you enter Kanto. All of their teams range from the low 50's to the high 50's in terms of level, and operate on a small movepool. There's no real level increase or difficult curve as you fight them, save for Blue. So, no, I do not believe the Kanto leaders were ramped up significantly in difficulty.

_________________Hm. Something will have to go here at some point in time.

Until then... *Sigh*

Last edited by Yanama on Sat Oct 16, 2010 11:55 am, edited 1 time in total.

HGSS's levels were incredibly stupid, so I don't see any problem with Yanama's suggested buffs for the Gym Leaders. Everybody, including the wild Pokemon, was massively underleveled for 90% of the game. I played through all of HGSS and fought every Trainer for the walkthrough, and I was never in any danger of losing at any point against the Gym Leaders because they were all so weak. Then, suddenly, the Elite Four rematch rosters and Red have these obnoxiously high levels that your own Pokemon will never reach without massive grinding. And keep in mind that I intentionally fought EVERY regular Trainer, so I can only imagine how much lower a regular player's teams were. That's poor planning and design.

Plus, Yanama's levels aren't even THAT much better than the actual game's. Lawence said that the first Gym Leader shouldn't have level 13-15 Pokemon, but Falkner's Pidgeotto in HGSS is Level 13. And Farfetch'd and Murkrow are garbage, and the entire team of three would be completely screwed against Onix or Geodude, so even Yanama's team would be pretty easy to take down. And one of my biggest issues with the GSC/HGSS Gym Leaders is that they ALL have 2-3 Pokemon except Clair, who has four. I don't know WHY the newer games are hesitant to give the Gym Leaders full rosters of Pokemon. In RBY, Giovanni's Gym team had five Pokemon and they were all competent and fully evolved. Since then, the eighth Gym Leaders have had four Pokemon that were weak or not even fully evolved, and Iris and Shaga in BW have only THREE. The games are so piss easy now.

I agree with Frost. The difficulty of the games has gone downhill since Kanto. I really wanted to see stronger trainers in HGSS [being the fact, that I consider remakes a way to give old trainers a new challenge.] I played through all the games and, am in shok at how easy the games are. I litterally blew threw HGSS by sending a level 55 Alakazam. (and no I didnt use it until Jasmine.). I ran threw it, but then I had to train for Red. Which wasn't too hard considering that Blue had got me a ton of experience. I realy wish games got harder, I want to WORK to beat a game. Not just blow through it with a team of like 3 pokemon.

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Sat Oct 16, 2010 3:24 pm

Lawence Codye

Psypoke Maniac

Joined: Sat Jan 02, 2010 6:17 pmPosts: 2512Location: With the 3 guides of time, deciding the fate of it...

I want the games to be more difficult indeed, but not if it is going to literally force you to have to bring certain pokemon to certain gym matches just to be able to beat the gym leader as it kills the variety of ways to play the game for me period...

I want the games to not be blown through in a single day which is very possible & I want it to be way harder to beat with a team that's around 3 or less pokemon indeed but I want to enjoy it 1 & 2 I want to feel like I had a choice in my pokemon I put into my team as I feel like the remade roster would pretty much destroy that seeing as Johto doesn't have too much variety in it's pokemon...

I however would like to have seen the Kanto Gyms actually prepare you for Red instead of just having them at that horrid LV range in comparison to him that they had...

I don't mind Falkner's pokemon roster revamp but considering the extreme lack of trainers you face before him, LV15 on top of moves like Swords Dance & Night Slash & Roost is outrageous period no matter how you look at it in the case that you don't bring a Geodude or Onix to the Gym, just saying, if the rest of the region adapted to help you match up a little better then ok but as it is in HGSS this is really not going to work though that is mainly cause of the Items & Movepools which are a tad bit painful somewhat...

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In RBY, Giovanni's Gym team had five Pokemon and they were all competent and fully evolved. Since then, the eighth Gym Leaders have had four Pokemon that were weak or not even fully evolved, and Iris and Shaga in BW have only THREE. The games are so piss easy now.

Gen I: koga had two unevovled koffings
blaine had a unevovled growlithe and ponyta
giovanni's rhyhorn is unevevoled
in yellow koga has like 3 unevovled venats.

the point is that pokemon arent usually fully evovled.

i would agree that they need more than 3 pokes but 5 should be the limit

Five shouldn't be the limit. Gym leaders are supposed to be good trainers, and if they have piss easy Pokemon then there is no challenge. Gym leaders should have full rosters of Pokemon, it wouldn't be that hard. Especially the final gym leaders, they should have six Pokemon with the bulk of them being fully evolved and no first stagers. I want a challenge but I don't want it to be lubriciously hard. Bump up the levels, give them good moves. It's not that hard, but then again I like what we have rather than not having any at all.

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